The silence was the first sign of death.
One moment, the ship was screaming, a chorus of tearing metal and shrieking alarms. The next, nothing. Just a high-pitched ringing in my ears and the thick, acrid smell of burnt wiring. My cheek was pressed against the cold viewport, my body tangled in the safety harness that had probably saved my life and killed everyone else.
I forced my eyes open. Outside, a riot of green. A jungle, so dense and alien it felt like it was breathing. Inside, only red. The flashing emergency lights painted the wreckage in blood. Captain Eva, slumped over the console, wasn't moving. Neither was Kenji. The silence was their silence. I was the only one left to hear it.
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed its way up my throat. I had to get out.
Fumbling with the harness release, my fingers felt clumsy and thick. It finally clicked open and I slumped forward, a cry of pain tearing from my lips. My left arm. A deep, grinding ache radiated from my forearm, a sickening looseness that told me it was broken. Badly. I cradled it against my chest, my breath coming in ragged sobs.
My reflection stared back at me from a dark console screen. A ghost with wide, terrified eyes. My dark hair, cut short for the practicality of fieldwork, was matted with sweat and something sticky. I’ve always been small, athletic enough for the demands of xenobotany, but in the reflection, I just looked breakable. A small creature, a long way from home.
A gash on my thigh was oozing blood, warm and sluggish down my leg. I ripped a strip of fabric from my torn uniform and tied a crude tourniquet above the wound, hissing as I pulled it tight. Adrenaline was a fire in my veins, burning away the shock, leaving only the raw, animal need to survive.
Move, Anja. Move now.
The main hatch was a twisted wreck. I had to crawl through a service conduit, dragging my useless arm, the pain a constant, blinding starburst behind my eyes. I pushed out into the alien air and immediately gagged. It was thick, humid, heavy with the smell of wet earth, decay, and flowers so sweet they were sickening.
The jungle floor was a carpet of moss that glowed with a faint, blue light. Towering trees, like black, twisted spires, blotted out the sky. Every sound was magnified—the drip of water from enormous leaves, the chittering of unseen insects, a low, guttural thrumming that vibrated up through the soles of my boots. I was an open wound in a world that wanted to infect me.
I had to find shelter. Water. Anything. I stumbled away from the wreckage, my only guide the instinct to put distance between myself and the tomb of my crew. Each step was an agony. The air was too thick to breathe properly, my lungs burning. Every shadow seemed to coalesce into a threat, every rustle of leaves was the sound of my impending death.
Then I heard it.
It wasn't a rustle. It was the confident, rhythmic panting of a predator on the hunt. The sound of claws skittering over rock. I froze, every muscle in my body screaming. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat in the oppressive silence. I scanned the glowing undergrowth, my eyes wide, trying to pierce the gloom.
They emerged from the shadows like drops of oil given life. Four of them. Their bodies were lean and slick, like hyenas made of tar. But their heads were the worst part. Each one had a cluster of six eyes, black and unblinking, that moved independently of each other. They didn't blink. They just watched. A low growl rumbled from the lead creature’s chest, and a line of thick, viscous saliva dripped from its jaw, sizzling when it hit the glowing moss.
I backed away slowly, my good hand scrabbling for a weapon, a rock, anything. My fingers closed around a heavy, jagged piece of the ship’s fuselage. It was a pathetic defense, but it was all I had.
They fanned out, circling me, cutting off any escape. Their movements were fluid, coordinated. They knew what they were doing. They were toying with me. My back hit something hard—a wall of black rock. Trapped. This was it. I was going to die here, torn apart on a nameless planet lightyears from everything I'd ever known.
I raised my makeshift weapon, my whole body trembling. A sob escaped my lips, hot and ragged. The lead creature took a step forward, its multi-eyed gaze fixed on my throat. It crouched low, muscles bunching for the final leap. I closed my eyes, a final, fleeting image of a green Earth flashing through my mind.
A sound cut through the air. Not from the creatures. It was a sound of pure violence. A wet, percussive crack, like a giant snapping a tree branch in half.
My eyes flew open.
The lead creature was on the ground, its head twisted at an impossible angle. Standing over its corpse was a figure that made the monsters hunting me look like pets.
He was a behemoth, well over seven feet tall and built of slate-gray muscle so dense it looked like living stone. Faint, bioluminescent patterns, like constellations, pulsed softly on his skin. He was naked except for a rough loincloth. He didn’t have a weapon. He didn't need one. His hands were weapons. His whole body was a weapon.
The other three creatures hesitated, a confused snarl twisting their lips. It was the last mistake they would ever make.
He moved. It wasn't a run; it was an explosion of brutal force. He was on the second one in a heartbeat, his massive hand clamping around its skull. There was a sickening crunch, and the creature went limp. He tossed it aside like trash. The remaining two broke and ran, but they didn’t get far. He caught one, lifted it over his head, and simply tore it in half. The sound was wet and final. The last one he dispatched with a single, brutal kick that sent it flying into the rock face with a sound like a melon hitting concrete.
Silence returned, heavier and more terrifying than before.
He stood in the center of the carnage, his chest rising and falling slowly. He wasn't even breathing hard. The black, oily blood of the creatures dripped from his hands. He was more horrifying than anything I could have imagined. He hadn’t saved me. He had just cleared the table.
Slowly, he turned his head, and his eyes found me. They weren’t like human eyes. They were flat, black, and utterly devoid of emotion. Windows into a void. I was no different to him than the dead things at his feet. Just another piece of meat.
He started walking towards me. Each step was deliberate, shaking the ground. I was paralyzed, my pathetic piece of metal falling from my numb fingers with a clatter. I was a mouse and a mountain was coming to crush me.
He stopped right in front of me, so close I had to crane my neck back to see his face. He blocked out the entire world. The air around him smelled of musk, blood, and something else—something wild and purely male that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
He looked down at me, his gaze sweeping over my body, lingering on the gash on my leg, the useless arm I clutched to my chest. I expected disgust, or indifference. I saw neither. I saw… assessment. Like a butcher sizing up a cut of meat.
Then, he reached for me.
His hand was enormous, the fingers thick, the nails like black claws. I flinched back, pressing myself harder into the rock, but there was nowhere to go. His fingers closed around my broken arm.
The pain was a white-hot nova. A scream, raw and animal, was ripped from my throat. He didn’t react. He didn’t seem to notice. He simply used my arm to haul me away from the rock, my feet scrambling for purchase.
With one effortless motion, he bent down and slung me over his shoulder.
My world turned upside down. My head dangled near the small of his back, my cheek pressed against the impossibly hard landscape of his muscles. The ground lurched with every powerful stride he took. I was weightless to him. I was nothing. A prize. A piece of property.
The overwhelming scent of him filled my senses. The sight of his gray skin, slick with alien blood. The jarring rhythm of his walk. The pain in my arm. The terror. It was too much. The edges of my vision swam, turning gray and then black. My last conscious thought was not of rescue, but of capture. I had escaped the predators only to be claimed by the apex. Then, the darkness took me completely.
